Construction unions scored a pair of victories in California last week when constituents voted YES on Proposition 51, a $9 billion school bond measure dedicated to the construction and modernization of schools and community colleges across the state. They also voted NO on Proposition 53, which would have required a statewide vote for every…

  Last Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced a deal with developers and union construction officials that could bring back a program designed to create affordable housing for everyday New Yorkers. The program, called 421-a, expired in January. After a failed effort to revive it in August, Gov. Cuomo brought the parties back…

  Unions are spearheading a program to rebuild homes and create jobs across the rustbelt. The $2.1 billion effort, largely funded by the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust’s [email protected] Investment Strategy, aims to renovate aging neighborhoods and combat disinvestment and unemployment: “The cycle of despair in the urban centers of…

  Wilmer Cueva, the excavation supervisor overseeing the New York City construction site where a young worker was crushed to death last year, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide. The verdict was handed down Friday, with sentencing scheduled for December 16. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said companies and…

  Nashville is booming. Davidson County’s unemployment rate is the second lowest in the state at 3.8%. And the Nashville Business Journal recently found that the city’s wealthiest zip codes have grown wealthier over the past three years. Unfortunately, they also found the poorest have grown poorer during the same stretch….

  The City of New York saw yet another construction worker die on the job last week. The Department of Buildings (DOB) issued a stop work order immediately after the accident, which occurred at a Brooklyn hotel site. New York City has experienced a slew of fatal construction accidents of late, prompting local building trades [&hellip…;

  Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) celebrated the passage of Bill C-4 through the House of Commons last week. The bill aims to repeal anti-labor legislation, most notably Bill C-377, passed by the previous administration during a prior legislative session. C-377 aggressively targets labor unions with onerous bookkeeping and…

  In Indiana, a St. Joseph County Council committee has been grappling with a bill that would give an advantage to local firms bidding on public works projects. After approving the bill 4-2 along party lines, the committee sent the “Responsible Bidder Ordinance” to the full county council for a vote, only to have the [&hellip…;

  In August, the debate over funding for the $78.2 million Interlake Tunnel project in Monterey, California began to heat up. A $10 million state grant tied to a worker-supportive Project Labor Agreement (PLA) hung in the balance. But last week, the county water resources agency staff recommended the Board of Supervisors accept the funding:…

  Earlier this month in Multnomah County, Oregon, construction workers broke ground on a $300 million court house. The project is expected to be completed in 2020 and employ more than 500 building trades workers. Thanks to a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) negotiated by the Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council (CPBCTC),…

  Construction workers took to the streets of San Jose late last month to voice their displeasure with Cupertino-based developer KT Urban. Their complaints do not begin and end with KT, however. Union members are frustrated with a growing shift in Silicon Valley toward hiring non-union workers on development projects: Workers say it’s part…

  The Illinois labor community is looking to improve diversity within its ranks through a program called HIRE Education. The Lincoln Land Community College program is a 20-week course that prepares women, people of color, and former convicts for union apprenticeships. Those demographics are traditionally underrepresented in organized labor,…